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Completeness of mandatory attributes

Characteristic Name: Completeness of mandatory attributes
Dimension: Completeness
Description: The attributes which are mandatory for a complete representation of a real world entity must contain values and cannot be null .
Granularity: Element
Implementation Type: Rule-based approach
Characteristic Type: Declarative

Verification Metric:

The number of null values reported in a mandatory attribute per thousand records

GuidelinesExamplesDefinitons

The implementation guidelines are guidelines to follow in regard to the characteristic. The scenarios are examples of the implementation

Guidelines: Scenario:
Specify which attributes are required to maintain a meaningful representation of an entity. 1) A sales order should at least have values for order number, Quantity, Price and Total (Sales order is the record)
Specify the states of an entity where the above identified attributes become mandatory values (1)Order number quantity and total should be available as mandatory by the time order is created whereas price will become mandatory when the order is approved. (States :"Order created" "Order approved") (2) Product is retired and now has a product-last-available-date
Specify the dependencies of entities in operational context to identify the mandatory values (1)Invoice number should exist to create a gate pass
Specify default values where possible (1) Default country is Australia for those who fill the application from Australian IP addresses

Validation Metric:

How mature is the creation and implementation of the DQ rules to handle mandatory values

These are examples of how the characteristic might occur in a database.

Example: Source:
1) Let us consider a Person relation with the attributes Name, Surname, BirthDate,and Email. The relation is shown in Figure 2.2. For the tuples with Id equalto2,3,and 4, the Email value is NULL. Let us suppose that the person represented by tuple 2 has no e-mail: no incompleteness case occurs. If the person represented by tuple 3 has an e-mail, but its value is not known then tuple 3 presents an incompleteness. Finally, if it is not known whether the person represented by tuple 4 has an e-mail or not, incompleteness may not be the case.

ID 1

2 3 4

Name John

Edward Anthony Marianne

Surname Smith

Monroe White Collins

BirthDate 03/17/1974 02/03/1967 01/01/1936 11/20/1955

Email

smith@abc.it NULL NULL NULL

not existing existing but unknown not known if existing

Fig. 2.2. The Person relation, with different null value meanings for the e-mail attribute

2) if Dept is a relation representing the employees of a given department, and one specific employee of the department is not represented as a tuple of Dept, then the tuple corresponding to the missing employee is in ref(Dept),and ref(Dept) differs from Dept in exactly that tuple.

C. Batini and M, Scannapieco, “Data Quality: Concepts, Methodologies, and Techniques”, Springer, 2006.
if a column should contain at least one occurrence of all 50 states, but the column contains only 43 states, then the population is incomplete. Y. Lee, et al., “Journey to Data Quality”, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006.
1) A database contains information on repairs done to capital equipment. How- ever, it is a known fact that sometimes the repairs are done and the information about the repair is just not entered into the database. This is the result of lack of concern on the part of the repair people and a lack of enforcement on the part of their supervisors. It is estimated that the amount of missing information is about 5%. This database is probably a good-quality database for assessing the general health of capital equipment. Equipment that required a great deal of expense to maintain can be identified from the data. Unless the missing data is disproportionately skewed, the records are usable for all ordinary decisions. However, trying to use it as a base for evaluating information makes it a low-quality database. The missing transactions could easily tag an important piece of equipment as satisfying a warranty when in fact it does not.

2) a BIRTH_DATE value left blank would not be accurate because all of us have birth dates.

J. E. Olson, “Data Quality: The Accuracy Dimension”, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 9 January 2003.

The Definitions are examples of the characteristic that appear in the sources provided.

Definition: Source:
Domain Level: Data element is 1. Always required be populating and not defaulting; or 2. Required based on the condition of another data element. Entity Level: The required domains that comprise an entity exist and are not defaulted in aggregate. B. BYRNE, J. K., D. MCCARTY, G. SAUTER, H. SMITH, P WORCESTER 2008. The information perspective of SOA design Part 6:The value of applying the data quality analysis pattern in SOA. IBM corporation.
A given data element (fact) has a full value stored for all records that should have a value. ENGLISH, L. P. 2009. Information quality applied: Best practices for improving business information, processes and systems, Wiley Publishing.
Determined the extent to which data is not missing. For example, an order is not complete without a price and quantity. G. GATLING, C. B., R. CHAMPLIN, H. STEFANI, G. WEIGEL 2007. Enterprise Information Management with SAP, Boston, Galileo Press Inc.
Completeness refers to the expectation that certain attributes are expected to have assigned values in a data set. Completeness rules can be assigned to a data set in three levels of constraints: 1. Mandatory attributes that require a value 3. Inapplicable attributes (such as maiden name for a single male), which may not have a value.2. Optional attributes, which may have a value. LOSHIN, D. 2001. Enterprise knowledge management: The data quality approach, Morgan Kaufmann Pub.
An expectation of completeness indicates that certain attributes should be assigned values in a data set. Completeness rules can be assigned to a data set in three levels of constraints:1. Mandatory attributes that require a value, 2. Optional attributes, which may have a value based on some set of conditions, and 3. Inapplicable attributes, (such as maiden name for a single male), which may not have a value. LOSHIN, D. 2006. Monitoring Data quality Performance using Data Quality Metrics. Informatica Corporation.

 

Accuracy to reality

Characteristic Name: Accuracy to reality
Dimension: Accuracy
Description: Data should truly reflect the real world
Granularity: Record
Implementation Type: Process-based approach
Characteristic Type: Usage

Verification Metric:

The number of tasks failed or under performed due to lack of accuracy to reality
The number of complaints received due to lack of accuracy to reality

GuidelinesExamplesDefinitons

The implementation guidelines are guidelines to follow in regard to the characteristic. The scenarios are examples of the implementation

Guidelines: Scenario:
Continuously evaluate if the existing data model is sufficient to represent the real world as required by the organisational need and do the necessary amendments to the data model if needed. (1) A student who received a concession travel card is not eligible for a concession fare if he terminates his candidature before completion of the course. Hence the data model should have an extra attribute as "current status of candidature"
Perform regular audits on mission critical data to verify that every record has a meaningful existence in the reality which is useful for the organisation (1) All customers existing in the customer master file actually a customer in the customer space open for the organisation. (non customers are not in the customer file) (2) "Greg Glass" is recorded as a glass work company but in fact they are opticians
(3) A person's personal details taken from his educational profile may not be a correct reality for his insurance profile even though the information is
Perform regular audits on mission critical data to verify that every record has a unique existence in the reality (1) It is difficult to find out that the professor "Andrew" is from Colombia university or from the university of Queensland
Ensure that Information available in the system is accurate in the context of a particular activity or event (1) The driver details taken from vehicle registration may not be accurate in the case of finding the real person who drive the vehicle when an accident is caused

Validation Metric:

How mature is the process to ensure the accuracy to reality

These are examples of how the characteristic might occur in a database.

Example: Source:
if the name of a person is John, the value v = John is correct, while the value v = Jhn is incorrect C. Batini and M, Scannapieco, “Data Quality: Concepts, Methodologies, and Techniques”, Springer, 2006.
Percent of values that are correct when compared to the actual value. For example, M=Male when the subject is Male. P. Cykana, A. Paul, and M. Stern, “DoD Guidelines on Data Quality Management” in MIT Conference on Information Quality - IQ, 1996, pp. 154-171.
an EMPLOYEE entity (identified by the Employee-Number

314159) and the attribute Year-of-Birth. If the value of Year-of-Birth for employee 314159 is the year the employee was born, the datum is correct.

C. Fox, A. Levitin, and T. Redman, “The Notion of Data and Its Quality Dimensions” in Journal Information Processing and Management: an International Journal archive, Volume 30 Issue 1, Jan-Feb 1994, 1992, pp. 9-19.
Consider a database that contains names, addresses, phone numbers, and e- mail addresses of physicians in the state of Texas. This database is known to have a number of errors: some records are wrong, some are missing, and some are obsolete. If you compare the database to the true population of physicians, it is expected to be 85% accurate. If this database is to be used for the state of Texas to notify physicians of a new law regarding assisted suicide, it would certainly be considered poor quality. In fact, it would be dangerous to use it for that intended purpose.

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2.1 Data Quality Definitions 25

If this database were to be used by a new surgical device manufacturer to find potential customers, it would be considered high quality. Any such firm would be delighted to have a potential customer database that is 85% accurate. From it, they could conduct a telemarketing campaign to identify real sales leads with a completely acceptable success rate. The same database: for one use it has poor data quality, and for another it has high data quality.

J. E. Olson, “Data Quality: The Accuracy Dimension”, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 9 January 2003.
The patient’s identification details are correct and uniquely identify the patient. P. J. Watson, “Improving Data Quality: A Guide for Developing Countries”, World Health Organization, 2003.

The Definitions are examples of the characteristic that appear in the sources provided.

Definition: Source:
Determines the extent to which data objects correctly represent the real-world values for which they were designed. For example, the sales orders for the Northeast region must be assigned a Northeast sales representative. D. McGilvray, “Executing Data Quality Projects: Ten Steps to Quality Data and Trusted Information”, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008.
The data value correctly reflects the real-world condition. B. BYRNE, J. K., D. MCCARTY, G. SAUTER, H. SMITH, P WORCESTER 2008. The information perspective of SOA design Part 6:The value of applying the data quality analysis pattern in SOA. IBM corporation.
The data correctly reflects the Characteristics of a Real-World Object or Event being described. Accuracy and Precision represent the highest degree of inherent Information Quality possible. ENGLISH, L. P. 2009. Information quality applied: Best practices for improving business information, processes and systems, Wiley Publishing.
Is the information precise enough and close enough to reality? EPPLER, M. J. 2006. Managing information quality: increasing the value of information in knowledge-intensive products and processes, Springer.
1) Each identifiable data unit maps to the correct real-world phenomenon.

2) Non-identifying (i.e. non-key) attribute values in an identifiable data unit match the property values for the represented real-world phenomenon.

3) Each identifiable data unit represents at least one specific real-world phenomenon.

4) Each identifiable data unit represents at most one specific real-world phenomenon.

PRICE, R. J. & SHANKS, G. Empirical refinement of a semiotic information quality framework. System Sciences, 2005. HICSS'05. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on, 2005. IEEE, 216a-216a.
1) The degree to which an information object correctly represents another information object, process, or phenomenon in the context of a particular activity or culture.

2) Closeness of agreement between a property value and the true value (value that characterizes a characteristic perfectly defined in the conditions that exists when the characteristic is considered.

3) The extent to which the correctness of information is verifiable or provable in the context of a particular activity.

STVILIA, B., GASSER, L., TWIDALE, M. B. & SMITH, L. C. 2007. A framework for information quality assessment. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58, 1720-1733.